Occasionally, a first person wants to call a second person, but the first person may not have the telephone number of the second person. The first person may then call a third person to obtain the second person's contact number. The third person usually provides the contact information to the first person verbally.
The first person will then have to either memorize the number or write it down. After the first person disconnects the phone with the third person, the first person will dial the phone number of the second person. The above process is inconvenient and especially burdensome when the first person is driving a vehicle or does not have access to pen and paper to write down the phone number of the second party.
Certain telephony systems, such as a Private Branch eXchange (PBX), provide a telephone exchange in which telephone units that are members of the telephone exchange can be connected by way of a call transfer protocol. Call transfer protocols in such systems are divided into the following two categories: consult transfer and blind transfer.
In a consult transfer, a third person (transferor) receives a call from a first person (transferee) who wants to contact a second person (transferto). To consult transfer a caller, the third person consults with the second person before transferring the call, by pressing a transfer button to place the first parson on hold. The third person then directly dials the phone number of the second person and waits until the second person answers the call. The third person then informs the second person that he is transferring the call. The transfer can be completed when the third person presses the transfer button again.
A blind transfer is similar to the consult transfer process in that the third person acts as an intermediary in order for the call to be established. In blind transfer, however, the third person can transfer the first person to the second person without consulting the second person by placing the first person on hold, dialing the second person's number, pressing transfer and hanging up.
In the above scenarios, the first party is transferred to the second party through a gateway that connects the calls using the framework and resources of a private telephone exchange in which the third party is a member. That is, without the gateways and special programming to support the call transfer, the third party's telephone unit will not be able to transfer the call.
As such, the first person will not be able to contact the second person, if the third person's telephone unit does not support call transfer capability. Even further, the first person will have to solely rely on the third person to complete the call transfer successfully. That is, if the communication between the first person and the second person is interrupted, the call transfer may not be successful.
Furthermore, the above-noted call transfer method will apply a service charge to the third person's phone line for dialing the second person's phone number and transferring the call. So if the third person does not want to incur this cost, the first person will have to compensate the third person later, or be indebted. In short, the first person is unable to establish a direct connection with the second person via the currently available private telephone exchange protocols.
Accordingly, the requirements and limitations associated with the current private telephone network for contacting a second person are cumbersome and inconvenient to a user who wishes to directly contact the second person. Thus, methods and systems are needed that can overcome the aforementioned shortcomings.